Meta said it was postponing the rollout of new terms for its business accounts after an outcry from media companies and open-web advocates who said the updated rules would allow the tech giant to scrape vast amounts of data and potentially build competing services.
The new rules, originally scheduled to go into effect Oct. 30, authorize Meta to use automated software such as web scrapers and bots to “index, cache, analyze, collect, retrieve, or crawl the domains, web pages, or URLs” associated with a business account.
Critics say the update would have applied to all business clients, regardless of opposition, and without payment for the extracted content — and that Meta would have been able to use the content to potentially build products such as AI services that could compete with news publishers. Meta, however, said the update only applies to its ads and business products, and that how the company uses web crawlers is not changing.
That said, regular users of Meta's platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, can already have their posts scraped to train AI models as long as they are public.
On Oct. 28, a court in Norway granted a temporary injunction suspending Meta's new terms at the request of 180 Norwegian media companies, pending a full assessment of their legality.
Their case was supported by the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association (MBL), whose member newspapers account for approximately 97% of Norwegian newspaper circulation.
“We are satisfied that the court has agreed with us that Meta holds a dominant position in the relevant market and that the new terms are unreasonable,” said Lene Eltvik Vindfeld, MBL chair of the board.
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority said Oct. 30 it was starting its own investigation into the conditions.
“The CMA is concerned that Meta requiring news publishers and other content businesses to accept these terms could amount to an unlawful imposition of unfair trading conditions,” it said Friday.
Meta, however, says the terms don't change how the company uses web crawlers.
“This update is designed to make sure we’re able to pull accurate information about products for sale on third-party websites when making on-platform ad and content recommendations, not about scraping news sites,” wrote Meta spokesman Andy Stone on X on Oct. 16.
His comments came after a report by the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, which said that as written, “the new terms could be used to argue that Meta can scrape content from news sites and use that content to train the company’s AI products.” Nieman Lab said it consulted three legal experts who reviewed the terms at its request.
While there do not appear to have been any lawsuits filed in the U.S., the Association of American Publishers called on Meta to drop the new terms.
“In putting forth these onerous terms of service, Meta is implicitly acknowledging that permission is required for them to use creative works to develop and improve their products,” said Maria A. Pallante, AAP president and CEO, in a statement. “But at the same time this mega-corporation is abusing its dominant market power by compelling such consent from any commercial user who connects to any of their platforms.”
At some point after Nieman Lab's report, Meta removed the word “train” from the updated terms. The company says the update is not about scraping news sites.
Meta on Oct. 29 said it was listening to feedback and said for now its existing terms remain in place.
“We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make policy changes without a full consultation with industry groups and leaders,” Stone posted on X.
The Norwegian MBL said it wasn't satisfied with the postponement and Meta's assurances were insufficient.
“This is about people’s access to trustworthy and critical journalism,” Randi S. Øgrey, CEO of the Norwegian MBL, said in a statement. “When the financial foundations of independent news media are weakened, media diversity and the democratic public sphere are at stake.”
She said Norwegian media had three demands: Meta should commit in its new terms to respecting publishers’ reservations against scraping; using journalism in AI products should happen only after a separate, voluntary agreement and with payment; and publishers who do not sign the new terms should not be marginalized on Meta’s social platforms.
The Movement for an Open Web, the group which originally complained to the CMA, called Meta's move and the regulator's investigation a “significant win," but warned it was only the start.
“Unless the CMA and other regulators make it abundantly and quickly clear that this sort of anti-competitive landgrab is not acceptable, then we will continue to see the tech giants throwing their weight around in this way," said Tim Cowen from MOW.
The European Union executive body, the European Commission, confirmed it had discussed the proposed new terms with Meta and welcomed the postponement of their entry into force.
Spokesperson Sara Simonini said the commission was committed to ensuring that Meta’s practices comply with EU law, which prohibits a company from abusing its dominant market position and requires “gatekeeper” companies such as Meta to offer fair terms of use to businesses using their social platforms.
Simonini also said the EU executive had asked unspecified providers of AI models to give details about what training material they use, in line with the EU’s new AI Act adopted in 2024 and currently being implemented.
Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland.
FILE - A Meta logo is shown on a video screen at LlamaCon 2025, an AI developer conference, in Menlo Park, Calif., April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
A massive amount of water from unusually heavy rain was flowing through flood-weary parts of the Southwest on Monday, forcing hundreds of evacuations and keeping swift-water rescue teams busy as elections officials in at least one town announced alternative voting plans for Election Day.
One person died in the flooding, and police suspect a second death also is weather-related. The National Weather Service estimated as much as 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain could fall across the Four Corners region — where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah meet — through Monday as the phenomenon fueled by the warming Pacific known as El Niño disrupts weather patterns.
Over 20 trillion gallons of water have fallen on the Four Corners states and Nevada in the past two weeks, according to calculations by former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue.
Officials had warned of “potentially catastrophic” flooding in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, a town of more than 2,000 that was nearly wiped out in 1911 flood when the San Juan River crested at approximately 17.8 feet (5.4 meters). Readings late Sunday night showed the river reached 16.81 feet (5.1 meters) this time before receding Monday, the weather service said.
Alternative voting plans were arranged for evacuated or marooned Pagosa Springs residents by the Colorado Secretary of State's office. Other elections officials also made recommendations for voters to cast their ballots before the storms hit.
People had to leave their homes along the Animas River in southwestern Colorado, where Durango police Chief Brice Current said authorities were checking Monday on residents who rode out the flooding at home.
"There is still a lot of people stranded,” Current said. “There’s a lot of emergency services being utilized today.”
The Animas River was closed to kayaks and other recreational watercraft, and Current warned that sewage and chemicals flushed into the river could make people sick. Riverside trails and foot bridges were also closed, he said.
“The water is very high right now,” Current said. “We don’t want to create any more emergencies by recreating.”
Evacuations also were ordered along the San Juan River in New Mexico and on the Navajo Nation. The Utah Navajo Health System posted about highway closures and detours. The village of Chama in New Mexico was evacuated and cut off by road closures. Farther south, the rising Jemez River made campgrounds and fishing sites inaccessible.
Record rainfall numbers were reported across Arizona, including an eye-popping 7.3 inches (18.5 cm) over two days at Workman Creek, in a wilderness area northeast of Phoenix.
The two-day total of 5.15 inches (13 cm) in Flagstaff contributed to the wettest Nov. 1 ever recorded for that city, which typically has less than a handful of days per year where rainfall tops an inch, said meteorologist Jennifer Tate with the NWS Weather Prediction Center.
“What really stood out to me was that this wasn’t localized. It was a very broad system that brought a lot of rain to a lot of places,” Tate said Monday.
In Flagstaff, Arizona, where rain fell nearly nonstop Sunday, a man was seen falling into fast-moving floodwaters that went into a drainage tunnel near Northern Arizona University, police said. The body of Williams Singavarapu, 73, of New York, was found Monday about 12 hours later, about 15 blocks from where he vanished in the flood.
Flagstaff police said a second man, whose identity hasn’t been released, also was found dead Monday in a storm water drainage area. Police said it appeared to be weather-related but were awaiting an official cause and manner of death.
In Sedona, officials ordered residents near Oak Creek to leave Sunday as floodwaters trapped multiple people in their homes. The heavy rain washed out part of a main highway between Flagstaff and Sedona, mangling guard rails and leaving the road littered with boulders and trees. Arizona Department of Transportation crews were working to clear the roads and repair the damage.
Swiftwater rescues also were happening in Tucson, where weather service meteorologist Aaron Hardin said “we are getting two or three months of rain in a span of a couple of days.”
And manhole covers were popping up in the Pinetop-Lakeside area of central Arizona, where residents reported sewage backing up into homes because of flooding, the region’s sanitary district announced.
In Pagosa Springs, town residents impacted by the floods who received a ballot by mail can get a replacement one at any vote center across the state, the secretary of state's office said.
Voters who cast in-person ballots outside their home county can vote for only statewide races, but mail ballots can be returned to any drop box or vote center in the state by 7 p.m. on Election Day. The La Plata County clerk will have special hours Tuesday to help.
Pagosa Springs had just lifted an evacuation order from previous flooding last week, only to reimpose it Saturday.
Katie German, owner and chef of Bruin Coffee in Pagosa Springs, said Sunday that downtown was evacuated and streets flooded. She was most worried about the one bridge into town washing out, blocking trucks carrying everything from food to fuel.
“I’m worried about my business, worried about my employees, definitely worried for everybody in this town,” German said.
Marcelo reported from New York; Casey from Boston; and Weber from Los Angeles. Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
From left, Mateo Heras, Fr. Matt Lowry and Luke Willson fill sandbags to help with flooding at Our Lady of Guadalupe church in Flagstaff, Ariz., Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca)
A pedestrian crosses a flooded road in Flagstaff, Ariz., Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca)
A man uses a bottle to collect and dump rainwater from inside his car after getting stuck on a flooded street in Tucson, Ariz., Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (Mason Kumet/Arizona Luminaria via AP)
Members of the Tucson Fire Department's Technical Rescue Team rescue a woman from her car after it became stuck in a flooded wash in Tucson, Ariz., Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (Mason Kumet/Arizona Luminaria via AP)
